


Roses of Crimson Fire

by Esteliel



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: BDSM, M/M, Needle play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-26
Updated: 2010-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-14 03:18:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>If they saw his mother in him, let them. This night, he did not care. </i><br/>It is the Midwinter Masque, and Mavros bought Imriel a present... from Valerian House.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roses of Crimson Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oshun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oshun/gifts).



I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,  
Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;  
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,  
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,  
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,  
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:  
O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,  
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:  
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat  
Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,  
Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,  
And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet. 

~William Butler Yeats

It was the day of the Midwinter Masque, and the first fête Imriel spent as consort of the Dauphine. The large hall was glittering with decorations, and Sidonie's court was clad into elaborate costumes. Imriel himself had been clad by Favrielle nó Eglantine, and, as was always the case and would always be the case, Imriel feared, his costume had been chosen for as much political reasoning as for the striking effect it made.

His Sun Princess wore the guise of the sun itself once more, a reminiscence to the fête where Imriel realized for the first time that he was in love with the Dauphine. And in contrast to Sidonie, and to reassure all those who still feared the name of his mother and predicted a coup that would see him on the throne, Imriel's costume eschewed the symbolism of the sun completely. Favrielle nó Eglantine had turned him into the Moon, wearing silks of white and silver and a wreath of moonstone-studded beaten silver in his hair.

The costume was beautiful. He and Sidonie completed each other perfectly. They were the Sun and the Moon of the feast, and yet a part of Imriel could not help but feel weariness at the constant mistrust that followed all of his actions.

"Brooding on the Longest Night? It does not surprise me, cousin, though I hoped that today of all days, you would be in a more adventurous mood!"

Mavros stood before Imriel, long black hair braided into a hundred small braids, wickedly clad into the guise of a Tiberian god of pleasure. "Come, Imri, drink with me, and promise that you will stop brooding and have fun!"

"I am not brooding!" Imriel protested, but took the glass of joie presented to him by a slender, comely youth wrapped up in a sheet of white linen that was held up and around him only by two large, red bows.

"Joie!" Mavros kissed him afterward, eyes gleaming merrily. "And this year, cousin, I have bought a present for you!"

Mavros nodded towards the wrapped adept, who gracefully dropped to his knees and assumed the _abeyante_ position.

“Isn't it lovely? You can unwrap it, and see if it is to your liking.” Mavros' eyes gleamed, and Imriel thought he could hear the adept's heartbeat quicken, his own blood heating with the dull roar of bronze wings spreading. He did not need to be told from which House Mavros had procured the adept. Kushiel's hand lay on them all, and yet, for a moment, Imriel hesitated. He had sworn to never again violate Blessed Elua's precept – and yet, what would it say about him if he were to unwrap his present here, before the eyes of the court? How could that fail to wake memories of his own mother bringing Phédre to the fête wrapped in nothing but diamond-studded gauze?

Mavros' smile gentled, though he did not relent. “There is no collar on him, cousin,” he said, understanding in his voice. “And I promise you, it would be a sin to not make this beauty beg and plead tonight.”

“And it was I who chose his costume.”

The Dauphine's hand settled lightly on Imriel's shoulder. Her voice was firm, and loud enough so that the nobles clustered closer to them could hear her clearly, and already others were drifting closer curiously. Imriel smiled despite himself. “Ah, I see. You have set me up then?”

Sidonie smiled and reached down to run her hands through the adept's shoulder-length hair, then tugged at a handful of the fine, brown hair so that his head was pulled up, his vulnerable throat bared to their gaze as he swallowed convulsively, beautiful dark eyes gleaming with the gloss of tears at the sudden pain.

“Ah, Elua!” Imriel breathed and shook his head, feeling powerful and helpless at once when the sound of bronze wings beating resonated through his blood until it roared with the force of a storm.

“Yes. Yes, this one is for me tonight,” he said, his voice dark and thick with the onset of desire, and when Sidonie let go of the adept's hair, he groveled before Imriel, pressing his lips to Imriel's boots, both of them bound to each other by the bronze chain of desire to serve their Lord Kushiel.

“Stand,” Imriel commanded. “What is your name?”

“Roslin, Lord,” the adept said, his voice astonishingly firm, though his body was shaken by fine tremors. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his skin, and Imriel's own hands itched with the urge to stroke that fine skin, to slap it until it blushed, to carve red ornaments onto his back with a flechette... No, not that, he reminded himself, though the thought of it made him feel faint and desirous at once.

“And your signale?”

“Lilac,” the adept said, and now his voice faltered after all, the strength of his need making him breathless.

“Lilac,” Imriel repeated. “Lovely Roslin – you make a beautiful present. Shall I truly unwrap it here, do you think?”

There was still a hint of hesitation in his voice as he turned toward Sidonie, who smiled at his question. “Oh, do! That is why I got you this present, after all! And I wrapped it up myself.”

“With my help, and that of Lord Shahrizai there.” Amarante's teeth gleamed when she gave Imriel a mysterious smile. “I have to say, it was an... _educating_ experience. But very enjoyable nevertheless.”

“Your seamstress refused to make a costume for him, so we had to make do with our own limited skills with needle and thread,” Mavros added, giving the flushing adept a teasing smile. “Come, Imri. Don't keep us waiting.”

Imriel shook his head, feeling love and gratitude to spend this Longest Night surrounded by his friends. And then, when his fingers touched the first bow, the adepts _fearneedwantexcitement_ ran like a current through him, Imriel's own body humming with the resonance of a bronze bell.

The blood-red bow parted easily, and Imriel's hands moved to the second bow, tugging it open. The red silk floated to the ground, and alongside it, the white sheet that had veiled the adept's body from view slipped down as well.

“Blessed Elua!” Imriel's voice trembled, and the blood of Kushiel heated his body until all he could feel was white-hot desire.

They had decorated the adept's lovely body for him beneath its wrapping. Thin, wicked needles gleamed against his skin. They had pushed them through his skin, each tiny, pinprick wound gleaming with a drop of blood red as rubies. One needle each through a small, red nipple, and more needles decorating his chest, his stomach, his thighs with steel and with blood and oh, mighty Kushiel, even the tender, thin skin of his swollen phallus and the pouch of his testes. And around each of the needles, red thread had been woven, going from needle to needle, dividing the adept's lovely skin into small squares and trapezes and diamonds delineated by red thread and red pinpricks of blood.

Imriel swallowed, his throat dry and fingers itching to follow the lines of thread. “He is lovely,” he breathed, understanding at last the reason for why the adept's presence had called to his own blood right from the beginning, and remembering how Roslin had been trembling ever so lightly when he knelt.

Imriel breathed in sharply when he imagined the thread tightening all over the adept's body at the motion, pulling at the needles until new droplets of blood appeared.

Sidonie laughed in sheer delight at Imriel's reaction. “Well then, I am glad you like our present.”

“It is beautiful!” Imriel touched the adept's chest, pressing gently against the raised skin covering the metal of the needle encased beneath. The adept moaned beautifully, and Imriel allowed his hand to drop lower, stroking soft skin, tugging on the red thread until more tears appeared in Roslin's eyes. The adept was looking at him with worship in his eyes – not because Imriel was a Prince of the Blood. No. Imriel slowly pressed against the needle that was pierced through an erect nipple, and the adept moaned again for him, a first tear making its way down his cheek. His eyes were wide with pain and worship and the sweet surrender that was his Lord Kushiel's due.

“Lovely Roslin,” Imriel murmured again, the hungry timbre of his voice making the adept tremble beneath the touch of his hands. Then he wrapped his fingers around Roslin's hard phallus and squeezed. The sharp ends of the needles pricked his own skin, but he did not even feel it. Roslin cried out at last in pain, in need, in terrible surrender, his needle-studded shaft twitching in Imriel's cruel grip, and he would have crumpled to the ground at their feet if Mavros had not come to support him.

“You should have seen the excitement of Valerian House when Shahrizai, Courcel and a priestess of Naamah came to visit this morn,” Mavros said wickedly. “Ah, Favrielle nó Eglantine will be greatly displeased. None of her costumes will be the talk of the city tomorrow. Instead, that glory belongs to the three of us this year.”

He drew a hand down the adept's side, and Imriel's phallus, already hard with need beneath the comfortable breeches of his costume, ached with renewed urgency when Roslin moaned with pain-tinged need. He touched the adept's cheek with cruel tenderness. “I will make it last a very long time, taking them all out...”

He smiled wickedly and then kissed them all, the woman he loved, the man who understood his desires like no other, and the priestess of Naamah who had seen past his mother's blood and recognized the love he held for Sidonie, before he led his thread-bound adept to a private room, not caring for once about the eyes that rested on him. If they saw his mother in him, let them. This night, he did not care. This night, he would worship Kushiel, Naamah and Elua himself with the tears, the blood and the pleasure of lovely Roslin.


End file.
